Are Payers Ready to Assess the Combined Value of Drugs with a Companion Diagnostic?

Targeted drugs that are tailored to biomarkers are most often developed or co-developed with a companion diagnostic to identify patients who are good responders. Such companion diagnostic (CDx)-drug-(Rx) pairs have gained substantial interest in the recent years. This market is currently worth approximately $42 billion and should be worth over $60 billion by 2019. The oncology area leads the market (e.g. Herceptin, Erbitux, Vectibix, Gleevec, Iressa, Giotrif, Zelboraf, Xalkori, Mekinist, Tafinlar). Currently, 42% of all drugs and 73% of oncology drugs in development are targeted drugs. In 2014, 20% of drug approvals in the United States (US) were targeted drugs.